Flora starter pack, batteries, and NeoPixel 24 ring

For makers who have purchased an Adafruit Starter Pack, get help with the tutorials here!

Moderators: adafruit_support_bill, adafruit

Please be positive and constructive with your questions and comments.
Locked
User avatar
devinganger
 
Posts: 72
Joined: Tue Aug 09, 2016 1:09 am

Flora starter pack, batteries, and NeoPixel 24 ring

Post by devinganger »

All,

I picked up a Flora GPS start pack as well as a couple of other gizmos (including the 24 NeoPixel ring) to work on a basic wearable project. I have a couple of questions:

1) I thought I saw in one of the videos that you can plug in a 3.7V LiPo battery. However, I saw somewhere that the Flora does NOT have a recharge circuit, so you can't plug it into USB at the same time. Correct?
2) Is the included 3-AA battery pack enough to power the 24-ring? I tried playing around with it and only got half the ring to light up. If the answer is No, will the LiPo battery do the job?

User avatar
adafruit_support_mike
 
Posts: 67391
Joined: Thu Feb 11, 2010 2:51 pm

Re: Flora starter pack, batteries, and NeoPixel 24 ring

Post by adafruit_support_mike »

It's safe to plug in a USB cable while the LiPo is connected. There's a diode that protects the LiPo from being shorted to 5v. The Flora won't charge the LiPo while a USB cable is connected, like our Feather boards will though.

A 3-AA pack should provide plenty of power for a 24-pixel ring.. AA cells can usually deliver up to 2A, and the worst-case current consumption of a 24-pixel RGBW ring is about 1.9A.

Just to check, have you set the length of the LED strip to 24 pixels in your code?

User avatar
devinganger
 
Posts: 72
Joined: Tue Aug 09, 2016 1:09 am

Re: Flora starter pack, batteries, and NeoPixel 24 ring

Post by devinganger »

Yes, I thought I had, but what I hadn't done was solder some leads on -- I was hooking up with clips. I'll have to make sure I have more secure electrical connections and give it another shot, see what I find this time.

User avatar
devinganger
 
Posts: 72
Joined: Tue Aug 09, 2016 1:09 am

Re: Flora starter pack, batteries, and NeoPixel 24 ring

Post by devinganger »

Just to report back, I successfully got the battery pack (non-LiPo) powering the Neopixel 24 ring just as you said. Soldered leads and breadboarding for the win! (And applying some of the Neopixel tutorial to reduce the Neopixel intensity to 1/8th of full.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BWHRZGjnNO9/

User avatar
adafruit_support_mike
 
Posts: 67391
Joined: Thu Feb 11, 2010 2:51 pm

Re: Flora starter pack, batteries, and NeoPixel 24 ring

Post by adafruit_support_mike »

Looking good!

Locked
Please be positive and constructive with your questions and comments.

Return to “Arduino Starter Pack”